Netflix Giving Disc the Cold Shoulder?

Netflix’s quest to become a streaming juggernaut apparently is coming at the expense of discs, including offering catalog movies and TV shows the online disc rental pioneer once staked its claim on.

Since launching a streaming-only option last year and raising the monthly price to disc subscribers, Netflix has quietly begun downsizing disc acquisitions of newly released vintage movies and TV shows (notably on Blu-ray Disc), in addition to not replacing damaged current physical inventories, observers say.

In doing so, Netflix appears to be alienating the very user base steadily grown throughout the past 10 years that was indifferent to 28-day embargoes and must-have street date releases so vital to kiosk vendors.

Stephen Bowie, who writes a blog about classic TV programs, and counts himself an ardent Netflix subscriber, says the once “mighty stream” of classic disc releases available to subscribers has been reduced to a “trickle.”

Specifically, Bowie is referring to eclectic titles mainstream viewers usually avoid, yet often are sought by Netflix’s highly-educated, above-average income subscribers. As an example, Bowie cited a recent list of classic movies from the New York Times he says are nowhere to be found on Netflix.

They include Luchino Visconti’s Technicolor melodrama Senso (Criterion); Fellini’s I Clowns and the Fernando Di Leo Collection of Italian crime movies (Raro/Entertainment One); film noir classic The Prowler (VCI); remastered Roger Corman sci-fi flicks Not of This Earth and War of the Satellites (Shout! Factory); and a Rita Hayworth set (Sony Pictures) including the DVD debuts of Miss Sadie Thompson and Salome.

Bowie said “The Twilight Zone” and recent seasons of “C.S.I.” also are not available on Blu-ray, a format to which he claims Netflix has developed “a particular aversion.”

“What does infuriate me is that Netflix is abandoning DVD before it should, and that it has not been honest with its customers in this regard,” Bowie wrote.

To be fair, Netflix has been forthcoming about its transition to digital at the expense of digital. CEO Reed Hastings in analyst calls has repeatedly stressed the company’s focus and resources on streaming. Indeed, at an investor event last December, Hastings famously said that “98% of management's attention is on streaming and only 2% is paying attention to DVD.”

“Considering I downgraded to a one [disc] out at a time plan and started a supplementary Blockbuster account to watch a number of Blu-ray titles Netflix hasn't been buying, I would say the availability is not as good as it could be,” David wrote.